CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- More than 100,000 gallons of coal slurry
poured into an eastern Kanawha County stream Tuesday in what officials
were calling a "significant spill" from a Patriot Coal processing
facility.

Emergency officials and environmental inspectors said roughly six miles
of Fields Creek had been blackened and that a smaller amount of the
slurry made it into the Kanawha River near Chesapeake.

"This has had significant, adverse environmental impact to Fields Creek
and an unknown amount of impact to the Kanawha River," said Secretary
Randy Huffman of the state Department of Environmental Protection. "This
is a big deal, this is a significant slurry spill."

"When this much coal slurry goes into the stream, it wipes the stream out."

Earlier
in the day, Jimmy Gianato, director of the Division of Homeland
Security and Emergency Management, said he didn't have a lot of details
on the incident but was under the impression it wasn't that serious.

"I don't think there's really anything to it," Gianato said. "It turned out to be much of nothing."

The spill occurred at Patriot Coal's Kanawha Eagle operation.

The spill was caused by a malfunction of a valve inside the slurry line,
carrying material from the preparation plant to a separate disposal
site, not to an impoundment, according to DEP officials.

The valve broke sometime between 2:30 and 5:30 early Tuesday morning,
Huffman said at a news conference Tuesday evening. Patriot Coal did not
call the DEP to alert them of the leak until 7:40 Tuesday morning,
Huffman said. Companies are required to immediately report any spills to
the DEP.

There was an alarm system in place to alert facility operators of the
broken valve, but the alarm failed, so pumps continued to send the toxic
slurry through the system. There was a secondary containment wall
around the valve, but with the pumps continuing to send slurry to the
broken valve, it was soon overwhelmed and the slurry overflowed the wall
and made its way to the creek.

Huffman said they did not know why the alarm system failed.

"Had the alarms gone off and warned the operator that the pipe was
leaking, the shutdown could have been done in time for the secondary
containment to contain the material that leaked," Huffman said. "This
was a mechanical failure, we're not making any excuses for anybody."

The company turned off the pumps at 5:30, more than two hours before
anyone called the DEP, but Huffman said he's not sure if they turned off
the pumps because they knew about the spill or for another reason.

Patriot Coal released a statement on the spill Tuesday evening.

"Mine personnel provided notification to the West Virginia Department of
Environmental Protection and all pumping related to the slurry line was
promptly discontinued and the discharge ceased. Containment activity
began immediately at the site and is continuing in Fields Creek and is
our top priority," Janine Orf, a Patriot spokeswoman wrote.

For most of the day, the DEP was operating under the assumption that
MCHM, the chemical that contaminated the drinking water of 300,000 West
Virginians last month, was included in the spilled slurry. Huffman said
that they learned late in the day that the facility had stopped using
MCHM just a few weeks ago, so a different coal-cleaning chemical was
involved.

Huffman said that the new chemical was polypropylene glycol, although he
also referred to it as polyethylene glycol. He said that that chemical
is such a small part of the slurry that they don't believe it,
specifically, will have an impact.

Huffman said they had been testing for MCHM, but will now have to change their testing protocols.

Residents near the spill had complained of MCHM's telltale licorice
odor, but Huffman said that the odor was from a tank of MCHM that the
company was moving off site.

Oddly, in Patriot's statement the company mentioned testing for MCHM in Fields Creek.

"Recent testing initiated by the Kanawha Eagle mining complex confirmed
that the level of MCHM is far below the 1 part per million screening
level set by the Centers for Disease Control and in most instances was
non-detectable," Orf wrote. "We will continue to work with the
Department of Environmental Protection regarding the containment and
cleanup activities."

Huffman said that they are using booms, vacuum trucks and settling ponds to try to contain the spill.

Coal slurry contains a variety of substances that are likely more toxic
than Crude MCHM or polyethylene glycol. It contains heavy metals, like
iron, manganese, aluminum and selenium.

By calculating the rate of the pump and the time it ran, DEP officials
estimate a maximum of 108,000 gallons of slurry spilled into Fields
Creek. They do not know how much made it into the Kanawha, but Huffman
said the slurry was visible in the river for about a half-mile before it
began to dissipate.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot create polls in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum